In current computer networks, the users of a network need to be authenticated to prevent misuse and impersonations. Since computers were traditionally large and heavy, they were fixed in their location and users would move about to different computers. Authentication traditionally occurs when a user provides some credentials, such as a user name and password that are then compared to credentials stored in a central database. This allows the user to authenticate his identity from any computer. Numerous problems exist with this method. First, a user needs to remember his credentials but often forgets them, so there needs to be a way to recover the credentials in that case. Second, attackers may simply try all possible combinations of characters to guess the credentials. Third, if an attacker compromises the central database of credentials, the credentials of all the users may be stolen and used to attack other systems.
With the advent of smart phones and smart devices, computers are no longer set in fixed locations. Instead, computers are taken everywhere a user goes.
In current communications networks, the users are usually asked for personally identifiable information such as an email or phone number. This ensures both that the user is unique and that the system can contact the user in the event that the user forgets his credentials.
Some businesses, however, also use the personally identifiable information for monetary gain by selling user information to third parties, or using it for marketing purposes internally. This is a problem for users who do not wish their information to be shared and who do not want unsolicited communications. Users may occasionally opt out of information sharing, but if they do not opt out at the time of account creation, the information cannot be unshared. Some unscrupulous businesses even share information despite a user opting out.
In current communications networks, users usually find each other by sharing the unique identifier used by the network, typically an email address, phone number or user name. Once two users are linked on the communication network, the identifier of one user is known to the other. If one user wishes to sever the connection with another user, he has to actively block the other user since the other user can use the identifier of the first user to reconnect or stalk the first user. If the other user creates a new account, the first user has to block that new account also.
When the device is used to store the user's credentials instead of the user's memory, longer and more complex sets of credentials may be used to authenticate a user in a network. Storing the credentials on the device also removes the need for the user to authenticate every time a connection is made to the network, the device can automatically authenticate itself. The user need only be authenticated once when the account is created and each time a connection is made to another user.
The portability of the device allows users to authenticate other users either in person or using real time communications such as a videoconference or telephone call. This makes authentication more difficult to fake.
A database of unique identifiers where the only personally identifiable information saved is the user's name is preferable to one which stores email, telephone numbers or other personal information, especially when the name is not required to be the user's real name. If the database is compromised, an attacker can only use this information to determine connections between users since the user's real identifying information is never used in the network.
The invention described herein is a communication network that tries to solve the problems described above using portable smart devices and random unique identifiers. The use of random unique identifiers provides many levels of separation between identifying information, association information, and other information within the network.